Knapp Receives 17th Cuatrecasas Medal

From Plant Press, Vol. 22, No. 3, July 2019.

The Department of Botany and the United States National Herbarium present the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany to a botanist and scholar of international stature who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. The award is named in honor of Dr. José Cuatrecasas, a pioneering botanist and taxonomist, who spent nearly a half-century working in the Smithsonian Institution's Department of Botany. Dr. Cuatrecasas devoted his career to plant exploration in tropical South America and this award serves to keep vibrant the accomplishments and memory of this outstanding scientist.

The winner of this prestigious award is selected by a committee made up of four botanists on staff in the Department in consultation with other plant scientists outside of the Smithsonian Institution. Nominations for the Medal are accepted from all scientists in the Botany Department. The award consists of a bronze medal bearing an image of José Cuatrecasas on the front with the recipient’s name and date of presentation on the back.

Sandra Knapp

The 17^th recipient of the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany is Sandra D. Knapp. She earned a B.A. from Pomona College in 1978 and her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1986, focusing on Solanum sect. Geminata under the guidance of Solanum expert Michael D. Whalen. In 1992, Knapp joined the Natural History Museum in London, initially to manage the large Flora Mesoamericana project and presently as Head of the Plants Division. Knapp has received the Peter Raven Outreach Award (2009) from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists and the Linnean Medal for Botany (2016) from the Linnean Society of London, the world’s oldest biological society (founded in 1788); she was elected President of the latter society in 2018. Knapp has been very active in the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, where she has served as President of the Nomenclature Section. She has written extensively about the rules governing the naming of organisms and has authored or coauthored over 150 scientific research publications (garnering over 15,000 citations), in addition to books and numerous reviews and opinion pieces. Knapp’s non-technical books have focused on the history of botany and plant exploration, including on noted tropical explorer Alfred Wallace, who was a contemporary of Charles Darwin and founded the field of biogeography.

The Cuatrecasas Medal selection committee took special note of Knapp’s many accomplishments as a scientist, tropical botanist, and educator. Of special relevance to this year’s Smithsonian Botanical Symposium is her long interest in the Solanaceae, and in particular, putting order to the challenging genus Solanum, with over 1500 species, including such staples as potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants, and stunning Andean diversity. In her decades of neotropical research, Knapp has described over 75 new plant species and has advocated strongly for the importance of floristics and collections. Knapp has been a champion of conserving biodiversity and exploring the relationships between plants and people, noting the importance of the “cultural, societal, economic, and nutritional aspects of our relationships with crop plants, as well as our use and knowledge of the genetic diversity stored in their wild relatives.” She has written extensively on the challenges and opportunities for 21^st century botanists, as well as the changing roles of taxonomy, collections, and field research in a world with declining biodiversity.

The past recipients of the Cuatrecasas Medal are Rogers McVaugh from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2001); P. Barry Tomlinson from Harvard University (2002); John Beaman from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2003); David Mabberley from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney (2004); Jerzy Rzedowski and Graciela Calderón de Rzedowski from Instituto de Ecología del Bajío, Michoacán, Mexico (2005); Sherwin Carlquist from Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Pomona College (2006); Mireya D. Correa A. from the University of Panama and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (2008); Norris H. Williams from the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Florida, Gainesville (2009); Beryl B. Simpson from the University of Texas at Austin (2010); Walter S. Judd from the University of Florida at Gainesville (2012); Ana Maria Giulietti Harley from the Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Brazil (2013); H. Peter Linder from Zurich University (2014); Paulo Günter Windisch from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (2015); Kamal Bawa from the University of Massachusetts Boston (2016); Robin B. Foster from the Field Museum (2017); and Alan K. Graham from the Missouri Botanical Garden (2018).

Comments

[Denise E. Costich]

Incredibly well-deserved! Congratulations,Sandy... I can't help but think that Mike is smiling down on you...